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Login Here Signup Here Signup using FacebookI’ve been a vegetarian for 14-15 years now, and I am slowly drifting to towards a vegan diet… and reading around I’ve decided to start increasing the amount of raw foods in my diet.
I have four main issues here
1) I work at company which is based in the middle of nowhere, so a very nice lunch is provided each day. There is salad, but not much raw. I guess I could take food in, but I feel a little aggrieved to do so since my salary is calculated to include a huge conventional meal each lunch time! What foods can I take in with me to ‘boost out’ my lunchtimes to be enough.
2) My husband is a veggie too (hurrah) but isn’t so keen on veganism. What foods have a nice ‘creamy’ feel so he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out?
3) I live in the UK and a lot of the ‘special’ raw ingredients don’t seem to be available, apart from on line. I don’t have a credit card, so I need foods that are easy to buy in the UK at my local greengrocers (or in the supermarket at a push)
4) I’m recovering from an eating disorder, and currently under my ideal BMI. If I start losing weight again, I know everyone will think I’ve gone raw as a sneaky way of getting back to my ED-NOS ways. I need to make sure I get a good cal load. I guess lots of nuts and seeds is the start?
Over the past 2-3 weeks I’ve cut out most dairy, and upped my raw intake loads and I’m feeling better than I have in ages yay. I don’t want to lose that by going back to eating the foods that make me feel rough… but I also need it to be easy (So I don’t seem to be obsessing over food) and made from accessible foods. Can anyone suggest some recipes?
Comments
Hi MsDerious,
1. I would take an avocado in with you to bulk your lunch out. Also if you get a dehydrator, or find somewhere that sells raw wraps on a raw website, then taking the raw wraps with you and making your own up would be a nice change some days for you. You could make your own raw mayonnaise or creamy salad dressing. If you make one huge batch of a basic creamy dressing you can take some out and put different flavours into it every day so you can have a different flavoured salad ever day. I would do curry flavour, Italian, Chinese, Ranch, Green onion, red pepper and chile etc.
You could make a big raw cake or pies and take a couple of slices in with you for in between meals. And take a thick tasty green smoothie in with you to sip at all day too. It doesn’t have to be hard or time consuming. It takes about 10 mins to make the batter for raw wraps and about 1 day to dehydrate them. It takes about 10 mins to make salad dressing at the most, and about 15 mins to make a cake. Even if it adds to your food bill, you are worth it. It will improve your health so much that you will make back your investment in the long term.
2. Try the cheese recipe on my profile. You can make very creamy nut milks and cheeses. You can add coconut oil and or butter to nut milk and cream, and cheese, and creamy sauce recipes to make them have a more rich and creamy dairy feel and taste. Coconut butter is healthy and a good fat. And is normally raw when good quality.
3. We live in the UK too and we buy all our ingredients from the normal local shops. Email us at purelyraw@yahoo.com and ask us for our recipes, mention that we spoke on here, and you’ll see there are amazing things to be done with normal ingredients that aren’t expensive!
4. You may lose weight as you detox. Toxins are stored in fat and the body usually just wants to get rid of it all and start again. But most people do even out in time. I did. It is good to learn to listen to your body and eat intuitively. Your body knows what it needs, once you get past your food addictions you will be able to eat what your body tells you it wants and feel great and satisfied.
It sounds like you’re doing great. Just keep it up and try recipes that taste amazing that you will Love to choose over cooked foods. If you live near us then please come along to our Potluck where you can try loads of new recipes and meet wonderful people just like you.
Zoe,
Thank you so much for your well drafted and very informative reply! It’s very much appreciated.
1) Today I bought with me today a bit of raw dressing and a loooooooad of nuts! I foresee a lunch with a big bowl of salad. I unfortunately forgot both the avocado and the Apple and Walnut cinnamon balls I made (Sooo much tastier then the traditional desserts at work) but I’ll have some fruit and perhaps some honey. I know honey isn’t truly raw, but baby steps mean I’ll get there
It’s a pain that I’m being technically docked for food I’m not really eating, but I’m sure I can make the money back by forays into the corporate fruit bowl ;) Either way, I think it’s silly to force myself to eat things just because I’m being ‘docked’ for them. They will charge me either way!
My current thing is deciding which bits of gadgetry I need to buy, and which bits I don’t. I’m aware that a food dehydrator costs a fair few pennies, but I think if I get one it will vastly increase the variety of foods I can eat… and I’m much more likely to succeed in sticking to plan if I do get one. It’s also going to mean I can make wraps etc which will make portable food a lot easier! On the other hand, I don’t think I’ll go for a juicer just yet as I have a very nice hand blender and I lined a salad spinner with a nylon mesh to drain the pulp…, the juice is a little bitty, which I actually don’t mind as it’s more fibre!
It’ll cost me money to start…. But I can’t take it all with me when I go, so I might as well enjoy it now. If the levels of energy I’m already finding in the wet, dreary August are anything to go by its money very well spent!
2) I’m lucky in that there is a world foods store near where I live that sells a few of the harder to get ingredients. However, it’s open odd hours and it takes a little more effort than going to some of the other shops, but worth it! I will e-mail you, as I’d love to get my hands on some more of those recipes. Thanks for being some helpful :)
3) I spent much of the Bank Holiday weekend dragging my long suffering husband around supermarkets and local health food stores…. with a sad little notebook logging the availability and price of different ingredients. I got a little over excited by the cheap walnuts in one of the budget supermarkets! I’m sure in the mean time I can avoid all the recipes with very unusual ingredients, and think about including them later. I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of stocking up whenever Julian Graves has one of their half price sales.
4) I’ve always tried to listen to what my body says with regards to foods. Sometimes it tells me silly things, but I’m getting better at thinking ‘Nope, I don’t really need a slab of chocolate for my body, my brain is just thinking that that sounds tasty’. Oddly enough though, I had a chocolate button on Sunday, and found that I didn’t much care for it at all… but later on when I made some raw ‘fudge’ I found that it was very tasty and ate more than was strictly necessary! Over the last few weeks since I’ve started increasing the raw element I’m snacking on lots of things, but not eating huge meals. I feel better. I hope that after a few weeks when I’ve learnt more about how to get enough foods in, I’ll find that I’ll put a little weight back on in a healthy way. I don’t want to continue to have a ribcage like a toast rack covered in wet paper towels. Gosh darn it… I’ll just have to make myself tasty raw cakes and yummy, nutty dressings and ‘nut cheese’ However will I cope? ;)
I’m feeling a lot more positive after an almost totally raw weekend where I’ve never felt ravenously hungry, and enjoyed every meal.
I think the thing is to prepare food in advance, find a few good staple recipes like pates, breads and salads and fruit smoothies. Make them up and take them into work with you. Soup can also be made up with warm water and put into a flask.
Hi MsDerious, how is it going? I am no way as raw and/or informed as other people on this site, but I can try. I have a very good health food shop near me that doesn’t open late enough in the evening for me to get to it, so I make one big trip about every two weeks on sunday afternoon -as they are open then. I also do not have a dehydrator, but there are ways round things, you can use a big lettuce leaf for roll ups for example. Also could you chat to the staff in the kitchen and get them tohold something back for you, say if they make something with peppers in and the salad they offer doesn’t have peppers could they save you one? And I guess it’s a long shot but have you tried asking the finance people if you could have a slight raise if you don’t take anything from the kanteen…? Good luck! :-)
I just want to comment on the question about what raw recipes might be satisfying to a lacto-vegetarian.
My DH has always taken the lead on diet in our household. He went vegan first, went raw first, and I slowly came along behind him because it was easier than making two different dinners every day.
Even though we were both vegetarian for a long time, the key for me really is flavor – food HAS to be delicious or I don’t want it. I’d rather go hungry than eat food that isn’t delicious (and I have).
Other than creamy dishes – which I think might be unsatisfying for him if he still eats the real things – you might want to think more in terms of things with strong flavors such as those found in or inspired by ethnic foods (Indian, Italian, Mexican, Thai, etc.) Try him on some dishes that are perhaps savory/salty or garlicky or spicy and see if it works.
And definitely try Crisyn’s cheese sauce